The Parisian Pop-up Store
Jae-guk is excited to be given the opportunity to work with some of the world’s most prestigious brands. However, he soon realizes that this is not a simple task. DPHP is a large and powerful company, and they are not going to take no for an answer. They require Jae-guk to work extremely hard and produce high-quality results. If he does not meet their expectations, they will fire him.
Yoo-jung, a director at Hills Department Store, decides to cut all domestic storefronts and replace them with international brands. CEO Hwang gives Young-eun until the end of the month to reverse the decision or he’ll dissolve Sono.
Young-eun asks Chi-sook if she did anything to cause trouble. Chi-sook has a flashback to when she got drunk and told her dad that Jae-guk likes Young-eun.
While tending to Soo-wan’s grave, Hye-ok has a flashback to Jae-guk declaring that he plans to continue dating Young-eun.
Cedric Roux, the Director of Marketing for DPHP, arrives to meet with Jae-guk. He also happens to be the vendor that sold Young-eun Jae-guk’s photo ten years ago. Jae-guk lays down some conditions, including shortening DPHP’s proposed ten-day timeline to one week.
Young-eun goes to Hills to try and convince Yoo-jung not to cut Sono. Yoo-jung won’t change her decision, reasoning that Sono has no competitive edge over international brands. A later flashback also shows Yoo-jung saying that she’s cutting Sono because of Young-eun’s relationship with Jae-guk. ..
Chi-sook dangling a promotion before Gwang-soo to spur him into using his Hills contacts to save Sono. He sets up a golf game with Vice President Choi from Hills and instructs Young-eun to tag along.
Soo-ho begins to notice that Mi-sook is not herself. He assumes she’s lost all her money by investing in stocks and she lets him believe it instead of telling him the truth.
Vice President Choi avoids giving Young-eun a window to discuss Sono. After the game, they sit down for dinner and Vice President Choi stalls business again, finding a sleezy way to grope Young-eun’s hand instead.
Vice President Choi wants Young-eun to ride in his car back to Seoul with him to grab another round of drinks. She misses an incoming call from Mi-sook as he insists that she won’t have another chance to talk.
Young-eun, fed up with Vice President Choi’s unprofessional behaviour all day, tells him that she won’t let him use her desperation to coerce her into performing sexual favours. ..
Mi-sook was driving home from work when she had a heart attack and stopped responding. The paramedics arrived to find her collapsed on the bathroom floor. Mi-sook was in pain before she passed out. Soo-ho was busyromancing Min-kyung when they found her.
Mi-sook is taken to the hospital and her condition stabilizes. Soo-ho arrives and the couple cries together. Young-eun goes to her car to give them some privacy and pretends to call Jae-guk. She talks about how angry she is that she spent the day entertaining Vice President Choi while Mi-sook was in pain. ..
Young-eun is surprised to see Jae-guk waiting for her outside her building. Jae-guk tells her he finished a week’s worth of work in three days so he could come back early.
Mi-sook cries at the hospital bedside, disappointed in herself for not realizing she was sick. We flashback to Young-eun at her bedside urging her to start chemotherapy instead of fearing the side effects. Mi-sook tells Young-eun to stop giving her hope after the doctors told her it’s too late for a full recovery.
Young-eun asks Jae-guk for a favor. We cut to her in a meeting room with Cedric where she shows him Sono’s recent collaboration broadcast. When it ends, he tells her the story of how Jae-guk wrote the note in her portfolio ten years ago. He also gives Sono the go-ahead to open a pop-up store in the La Fayere Department Store in Paris for two months. If Sono performs well, they’ll get a permanent storefront.
Our four leads discuss their upcoming trip to Paris for the pop-up store over celebratory drinks. Young-eun also drops the news that her father now knows about Jae-guk and Young-eun, telling them he’s likely to fire Young-eun if their Paris venture fails. ..
Chi-sook walks Do-hoon home and they get an idea for how to take the heat off Young-eun before they go to Paris. She tells Do-hoon that what she’s about to do is purely business and pulls him in for a kiss after ringing the doorbell. Her stunned father watches through the monitor. ..
Chi-sook tells her father that she doesn’t want to lose her friend because of him. She says she doesn’t want to be apart of a relationship where Young-eun is treated unfairly.
The news about Sono’s Parisian pop-up store is released with much fanfare and Korean department stores want to extend their contracts with Sono while reducing fees. It’s enough to give Young-eun the power to meet with Yoo-jung and pull Sono from Hills herself.
The next day, Soo-wan’s mother, Hye-ok, calls Young-eun and introduces herself as Soo-wan’s mother, asking to meet. Young-eun says that she sees no reason to meet Soo-wan’s mother, but she will meet with Jae-guk’s mother.
The Episode Review
Throughout the first half of this drama, there have been several recurring patterns. Sono always gets into new crises, Jae-guk always steps in to help save the day, Chi-sook always gets drunk with Do-hoon, Yoo-jung is always a general nuisance, and an obligatory flashback to Young-eun buying Jae-guk’s photo is always included to remind viewers that they are in a fated romance. ..
Mi-sook’s character is unique in that she helps Young-eun achieve emotional growth through her own suffering. However, this is because her only purpose seems to be helping Young-eun achieve emotional growth through her own suffering. Otherwise, her storyline is strangely disjointed from the main narrative.
Chi-sook has recently shown signs that she cares about Young-eun more than she does for herself. This change came abruptly and without explanation, but it’s something to build on. ..
